Conclusion

This semester is coming to an end before I realize it. I really enjoy this course (HMSL 6350) which has the most students in my graduate classes. Some former students who took this course told me at the beginning of this semester, “That’s a wonderful class. Enjoy it”! They didn’t lie!

This is my first blog writing in English. I have never thought I could express my opinions to others using this way. Blogging makes me thinking, then writing. Too much information around us, only if you are thinking, that information is valuable for you. I am so glad that my classmates like to read my blogs. At first, I thought no one would read my blogs because of grammar mistakes and different perspectives, but I was wrong. I also enjoyed reading my classmates’ blogs, because all opinions from the people who care about sports rather than the media. I think the opinions from media could not represent the public. Reading other classmates’ blogs gives me a chance to know the real lives of students in U.S.

Reading materials for the class truly expanded my mind and showed different dimensionalities of the sport world. I like reading from different authors and different opinions instead of a textbook. I have watched an inspiring movie named Homeless to Harvard. In the movie, a student asked his history teacher why they studied articles from different authors rather than using a textbook. The teacher told him that history is all people’s stories, while a textbook just is one person’s story. I believe different opinions from different authors for the same issue make an approach to the truth.

All in all, I learned a lot from this course, from Dr. Spencer, from other students. I highly recommend this course to other students!

Transsexual and potential transsexual

The most important thing in transsexual issues is how to maintain the fairness between transsexual athletes and normal athletes. Especially, when male athlete transfers into female athlete, because the androgen still maintains at a high level at the beginning of transsexualism, the sport ability will not change. Therefore, a standard of androgen is needed to test the athletes’ androgen levels before the games.

Another issue is potential transsexual which the female athletes abuse the steroid or other androgen medicines by themselves or by coaches. In order to increase female athletes’ physical strength and endurance, some coaches ask their athletes to take androgen medicines or some female athletes will choose to take. In other words, those female athletes received the potential transsexual for the purpose of winning the champions.

However, taking androgen medicines absolutely has the side effects to the female athletes. They will show masculine qualities, such as growing a beard, darkening body hair, and deepening voice. Those changes also will cause their psychological problems which make them feel inferior. Other serious problems will appear when those female athletes retire from sports. In order to keep female characteristics, they have to take estrogen medicines paid by their own. In the first place, however, most retired athletes in China are struggling to find a job, and those estrogen medicines are really expensive. Therefore, those female athletes live miserable lives during both athletic periods and retired periods. This is not the issue just happened in China, but in the whole world. If interested, please see Honour, J. W. (1997). Steroid abuse in female athletes. Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 9, 187-192.

Gender equity in media coverage

“Successful female Olympic athletes contribute to closing the gender gap in media coverage” (Hovden et al., 2008, p.1). According to Hovden et al. (2008), female and male athletes had almost the same media coverage in China. However, female athletes got fewer percentage of media coverage compared to their greater achievements. In 2004 Athens Olympics, Chinese female athletes received 63% of Olympic medals, but only had 52% of media coverage. This situation was even worse in Belgium which female athletes received 67% of medals compared to 43% of media coverage and in Germany which received 57% of medals compared to 39% of media coverage (Hovden et al., 2008, p. 8, table 7).

Overall, Chinese women sports receive more achievements than men sports. In 2008 Beijing Olympics, female athletes and teams won 57 Olympic medals, while male athletes and teams only won 42 Olympic medals. Especially, for “big balls” (soccer, basketball and volleyball), Chinese women teams won many world champions. However, most people in China will choose to watch men’s games instead of women’s games if these two games played at the same time. People think that male athletes are stronger, faster and more skillful than female athletes. When Chinese men soccer team entered the World Cup 2002 for the first time, the whole country was crazy! I was an eighth grade student in 2002. I still remember that one of the strictest teachers in our school cancelled her class, and she bought a big radio to the classroom. All students sat around that radio to listen the game---China vs. Brazil. Actually, the whole country did the same thing, from schools to companies, from government officers to taxi drivers.

The media coverage of Olympics in China based on who has greater chance to win gold medal rather than gender difference. Particularly, media and audiences all focus on top athletes who are former world champions. Therefore, the only hero is gold medal winner; the silver and third winners will be forgotten quickly.

Disability in China

“Sports opportunities for people with disabilities should focus on how to construct opportunities that emphasize the sports ability of participants rather than their disability” (Nixon, 2007, pp.417). This is the most impressive statement to me. I think we should also apply this rule (focus on ability rather than disability) to the real world for all people with disability.

People with disability in China have a header life than in the U.S. If you are in the public places, you barely can see the people with disability. It is abnormal to consider the huge population in China. The reason for this phenomenon is lacking of basic facilities for the people with disability. Before 2008 Paralympics, the Chinese government built many facilities for the athletes with disability in venues and infrastructure. These facilities truly improved the situation for people with disability in China, but it’s still not enough. In contrary, in the U.S., I found lots of people with disability in the public places, such as the supermarket, restaurant, or shopping mall. Convenient parking space, automatic door and special bathroom shell provide people with disability wider lives for outside of the world.

Another issue about people with disability in China is employment opportunities. As far as I know, the majority of people with disability are authors. Because people with disability usually stick at home for lacking of basic facilities in the public places, writing is one of few jobs they can do for living. I heard, for the big companies in U.S., they have to hire several employees with disability to show the equal opportunity for all. For example, Bowling Green State University is committed to equal opportunity for all and does not discriminate in admission or access to, or treatment of employment in, its programs and activities on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, marital status, mental or physical disability, or veteran status.

Even though China don’t have perfect legal systems and enough basic facilities, because China need face to lots of social issues as a developing country, the Chinese government have already started to concern about the people with disability.

Nothing wrong to be a gay

In the 2008 Olympic Game, only 10 athletes announced they are gay or lesbian from total 10, 500 athletes. The reason why most of the gay or lesbian athletes will not come out is some people don’t understand or accept the gay or lesbian athletes. Gay athletes worried that if they come out, they may lose their fans, their commercial contracts, and even their playing opportunities.

I got my bachelor’s degree in Wuhan Sport University (recently changed the name from Wuhan Institute of Physical Education to Wuhan Sport University). Most of students in our university are college athletes, and some of them are the Olympic Champions. I know many gay or lesbian athletes in our university. There even has a “gay bar” in our university (the university rent some idle buildings). However, when I searched the Internet, I found that no athletes in Chinese National Teams announced they are gay or lesbian. I believe the gay or lesbian athletes hide their sexual orientation to bend of social pressure.

Existence is reasonable. I don’t understand why some people cannot accept the different sexual orientation. I think the different sexual orientation is the same with the different eye color. My friend told me a story about her dog named Xirui (a boy’s name). She said Xirui always chase other boy dogs rather than girls. At first, she thought he was too young to know love, but as time goes by, he still chases boy dogs. One day, she suddenly realized that her dog is a gay. My friend treats Xirui as her family member. She told me, “If GOD creates him as a gay, why not against his nature? I just want him happy”.

I found an interesting Game named Gay Game. Originally called the Gay Olympics, it was started in San Francisco in 1982; it retains many similarities with the Olympics, including the Gay Games flame which is lit at the opening ceremony. The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level. There are no qualifying standards to compete in the Gay Games. It brings together people from all over the world, many from countries where homosexuality remains illegal and hidden (resources from Wikipedia).

Reading the Muscle Body: A Critical Decoding of Advertisements in Flex Magazine

I read an article about the muscle size of GIJoe from a Chinese website many years ago. The article said that the GIJoe’s muscle become bigger and bigger for the last thirty years. White and Gillett (1994) mentioned, “Building a muscular physique offers some men a compensatory means by which they can construct and validate, symbolically through their bodies, a particular masculine identity” (pp. 20). They also said, “Muscularity is still central to intermale evaluation even for men who scoff at the exaggerated muscularity of professional bodybuilders” (pp. 20). The bodybuilders in the Flex Magazine are really huge and a little scaring. Do the females really like the exaggerate muscles?

In China, we also have the similar magazine with the Flex Magazine named Fitness and Beauty. This magazine which is the first fitness and bodybuilding magazine in China started to publish since 1980. The contents are more focus on fitness and health rather than the bodybuilding. The cover characters are sunshine and health instead of the exaggerate muscle size.

Interestingly, most Chinese young girl like the males named “beauty as flowers” recently. They usually have melancholy eyes, beautiful faces, and skinny body shape. A great many young girls are crazy about them rather than muscular men. Oppositely, these girls also enjoyed the female stars with the neutral sexual character. These female stars have short hair, no “S” body shape, and deep voice. Is that means the feminism is coming in China?

The Whole World Isn’t Watching (But We Thought They Were): The super bowl and U.S. Solipsism

Most Chinese people always think the basketball is the NO. 1 sport in the US. Because the NBA is very popular in China, and everyone knows Kobe Bryant (but my favorite NBA star is Allen Iverson). Kobe Bryant said he admires Peyton Manning who is one of best quarterback in NFL, and never can stay with him. The NBA All-Star Game always gives way to the Super Bowl for the better audience rating. Therefore, the football, in fact, is the NO. 1 sport in the US.

I have no idea why Americans like football so much, but I do know some reasons why most Chinese people do not interested in football. First, most Chinese people are not strong enough to pursue this violent game. We have problems with physical confrontation. This is one of the reasons why Chinese are good at badminton, ping-pong and dive, but not good at soccer, basketball and volleyball. Second, there have no national football teams in China. We watch NBA because we have national basketball teams; we watch the World Cup because we have national soccer teams. We love our own teams and then we love the games. Third, the football’s rules are too complicated for people who begin to watch this game. If you don’t understand the rules, the game looks like that many crazy and angry players to fight for a ball.

However, the thing changes in China. This year, six television channels broadcast the 2011 Super Bowl in China. The video I showed in the top was very wide spread in Chinese facebook. Also, there have a Chinese American named ED Wang who plays in NFL recently. More and more Chinese people will start to watch the football games for that reason.